Tuesday

Aug 27, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Sometimes if I want to amuse people, I tell them that the school I attended through eighth grade was called the Brooklyn Ethical Culture School. If they ask what this means, I quote the conservative writer...

Sometimes if I want to amuse people, I tell them that the school I attended through eighth grade was called the Brooklyn Ethical Culture School. If they ask what this means, I quote the conservative writer Joseph Epstein, who says that Ethical Culture “attempt[s] to instill the ideas of religion without allowing God into the discussion.” But I add that, if Mr. Epstein intends this description as ridicule, he is being unfair. Why ridicule non-religious attempts to encourage people to be good?

The Brooklyn Ethical Culture School, however, was not very good at practicing what it preached. It preached concern for the poor but enrolled virtually none of them. Most of my classmates were rich, with a smattering from middle-income families like mine.

The school also preached respect for the individual but showed scant respect for the individuality of its own students. Teachers had a rigid conception of “the well-adjusted child” and made it clear that we failed to measure up if we lacked enthusiasm for acting in school plays and participating in sports.

Most of all, the school preached racial integration, a hot topic during my 1950s childhood. But, with just a sprinkling of black students and only one black teacher, it was integrated on the model of a second-rate chocolate chip cookie. (A first-rate chocolate chip cookie is, of course, mostly chocolate.)

The school wasn’t even good at preaching what it preached.

Instead of saying that we should care about the poor, our teachers told us to open our hearts to those who were less fortunate than we were. Instead of telling us to be nice to one another, they told us to honor the personhood and human potential of our fellow students. Instead of saying that segregation was evil and stupid, they called it a blot on the shining face of American democracy.

Their continual attempts to fill us with moral indignation made me eager to find ways to argue against their positions. But there was obviously no way that I could argue against integration. I could tune out lectures about it, though. So, when my seventh-grade teacher introduced Mr. Neblett (the father of two girls in the lower grades) as a guest speaker who would be talking to us about what the teacher called the tragedy and triumph of being a Negro in America, I decided to spend the time daydreaming about the cat I would get if it weren’t for my mother’s allergy.

Then Mr. Neblett began to speak. In a voice that seemed soft in comparison with the teacher's, he said he would tell us about some of his experiences. He told us about being denied jobs by people who did not know whether he would be a good employee or a lazy fool, and being denied apartments by people who did not know whether he would be a responsible tenant or a rowdy drunk who never paid his rent. All they knew was the color of his skin. He described strategies for combating discrimination and ended by saying that his life had turned out well.

I was not surprised to hear that his life had turned out well; after all, he could afford to send his kids to the Brooklyn Ethical Culture School. I just wished he could teach there. He was ten times as interesting as all the school’s teachers put together, and his calm, fact-filled presentation was as refreshing in the school’s overheated moral atmosphere as an ice cream soda on a blistering summer afternoon.

I could have listened to Mr. Neblett all day.

Mr. Neblett taught me about more than racial discrimination. He also taught me about public speaking. When I took a public speaking class in high school, the guidelines for an effective speech — be concise, be specific, don’t harangue your audience — were nothing new to me. I had learned them from listening to Mr. Neblett.

When I write these columns, I sometimes mention that I am changing people's names as well as some minor details. But the details of this column are as accurate as my memory, and I see no reason to disguise this impressive man’s name.

I never knew his first name, and I have no idea where he is now. Maybe, if I am very lucky, he will see this column and contact me. I would love to be in touch with him.

I bet he still has plenty to teach me.

Felicia Nimue Ackerman, a monthly contributor, is a professor of philosophy at Brown University.

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